Hum cancelling single coils

[JacksonRR]

Will BKP ever produce them? It seems they are the cream of the crop in every class of pickup and are well thought out designs with excellent craftsmanship, yet this popular choice remains unaddressed. I'm just wondering if anyone has ever had a custom PU made or knows a small manufacturer who will with the same level of quality. Thanks.

[Doadman]

I asked Tim about this as I really wanted hum cancelling single coils for my Jackson but he told me he had no plans to move into this area. Apparently it's an issue of tone. He simply doesn't believe they work as they don't produce a good humbucker tone and they don't produce a good single coil tone either. What they do produce is hum cancelling but essentially isn't as good as either of the other options tonally.

[JacksonRR]

I can't say I agree with that line of thinking, but that's OK. Thanks for the response on BKP as an option.

[ratspeak]

Get yourself a noise-gate.  :D

[Doadman]

I can't say I agree with that line of thinking, but that's OK. Thanks for the response on BKP as an option.

I sympathise as I know I really wanted hum cancelling single coils but while I don't think the tonal problems are anything like as bad as Tim suggests (and I'm sure he could do a hum cancelling single coil better than anyone else) I can still kinda see where he's coming from. My only experience of this kind of pickup is Seymour Duncan Hotrails and while it's a very decent pickup in its own right, it's got nothing like the thickness and body of a proper humbucker and equally hasn't been able to match the tone of my only real experience of single coils, which were a variety of Fender pickups. The Hotrails feels like a kind of halfway house and maybe that's why I'm not struck on it. It gives me some of the qualities of both but ends up neither one thing or another. The other factor, (as was even pointed out to me on the DiMarzio forum!) is that if I put a BKP humbucker in my guitar and pair it with another manufacturer's hum cancelling single coils, all I'll end up doing is highlighting how weak the single coils actually are. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE Tim to put some R&D into this area as I'm sure he'd come up with something good but for now I'll live with true single coils so I can stick with BKP.

[JacksonRR]

Get yourself a noise-gate.  :D

I have noise gates. Sure, they're great for stopping the signal when I'm not playing, but they do nothing for the amount of noise while I'm playing. When you play something softer, but still in high-gain mode/channel, the s/n ratio changes and it's not something I feel will be made any better with a true single coil.

Doadman, Kinman Pickups in Australia seem to be the leaders of true single coil sound with a humbucking design. They have a patented construction method though. I don't know what part is patented, but this is how they work. Sort of. All I could find out was that they're stacked, like a Dimarzio HS, and they have shielding between the top coil and bottom. Also the magnet pole pieces don't extend through both coils. The top coil has magnets and the bottom coil has steel, which is more of an antenna for noise. The bottom coil can now use about 20% of the windings of the top coil to produce a similar amount of noise that will cancel out when they are combined in humbucker form. Less windings on the bottom coil means the interaction is less.

But, yeah, I'm sure Tim could make an absolutely stunning version if he wanted to. Maybe I'll give it a go. There's an idea.

[Transcend]

Tim wont do any of this for a few reasons.

Firstly theres the sound issues he has already mentioned.

but also the exact same reason why he wont make active pickups etc

They arent vintage correct designs and it compromises the sound and the companys original goal to create things the old fashioned way giving the full amount of tone possible.

[MDV]

Tim wont do any of this for a few reasons.

Firstly theres the sound issues he has already mentioned.

but also the exact same reason why he wont make active pickups etc

They arent vintage correct designs and it compromises the sound and the companys original goal to create things the old fashioned way giving the full amount of tone possible.

Theres no such goal ;)

At least thats not my impression from conversations with Tim.

The only thing Tim gives a $%&# about is making the best sounding pickups he can. And I quote "If I like that sound, I dont care how I got it"

The vintage thing is used often at BK because it often works. Works = sounds good. If something else is needed, then it will be different.

I mean, I dont see too many camo covered double screw pole, double potted, symmetrically wound polysol >15k vintage-original PAFs around, or 23k single coils.

Ok, the camo doesnt affect the sound but you get the idea :lol:

He doesnt make them because he doesnt like them. The hum cancelling ruins the single-coilness while the single coil size gives a single coil pickup pattern off the string and ruins the humbuckerness.

He doesnt make actives for other reasons, which I forget (but I know they arent the same reasons, because I know hes got nothing against actives, saying "EMGs do what they do very well", which is a qualified statement, obviously, but not a condemnation)

[JacksonRR]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. He doesn't want to simply for the fact he doesn't want to. The stacked "single coil" design has been around since the mid 70's so there goes the "keeping it vintage" reason. The boys at Kinman have figured out how to make the sound come out as an excellent vintage single coil so there goes that too. It's cool if he is just not wanting to offer a similar or better product. Free will and all. He's not obligated to fill every slot in the pickup market, I just wish he would so's I can rock out harder. :D

[Transcend]

Sorry for my mistakes i shouldn't so readily quote things i've read from memory :P

And Jackson RR it doesnt matter if you buy other brand pickups... you wont be hung for it here :P

[MDV]

Sorry for my mistakes i shouldn't so readily quote things i've read from memory :P

And Jackson RR it doesnt matter if you buy other brand pickups... you wont be hung for it here :P

Aye, just saying...cant not correct things!

Anyway, yeah, lots of us use other pickups. I just switched two of my (4) guitars back to EMGs for razorblade precision, hyper-aggression metal, leaving two BKd for more dynamic, organic material. I find those roles are best filled by those pickups, so those are what I use. One of my other electrics has a kent armstrong in it. It rocks.

Use whatever floats your boat. If you want a sing sized HB, get that, from whomever you think does it best. Its a waste of time to hope that tim will make them, because he wont; he's been pestered for them since biblical times and still hasnt happened. I'm sure another maker has something that will satisfy you. Try the Kinmans, since you mention them so highly.

Its a pickup brand, not a marraige ;)

[gwEm]

i'll probably get a dimarzio area '67 to dick about with soon.

its a shame my strats with BKPs sound so good really, not sure what i'd put it in.

[Doadman]

As 90% of my time as a guitarist has been spent with humbuckers I'm hardly an authority on single coils but on this, I think I have a foot in both camps. On the one hand I respect Tim's position in remaining true to the search for the best possible tone but on the other hand, it seems silly to dismiss a growing section of the market.

If you look at the Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio websites it's easy to see that hum cancelling single coils account for a hell of a lot of their business and I'd guess they sell a lot more of these than conventional single coils. In today's society I think people are simply less inclined to accept that annoying hum than they were in years gone by and I would expect the market for true single coils to steadily dwindle, especially as advances are made in the technology by people like Kinman. Furthermore, why should the public believe they're so bad tonally when many respected guitarists use them with excellent results. If all this is in fact true, I believe Tim may have to eventually face the reality that he either changes his mind about hum cancelling single coils or he has to run his business largely as a humbucker only manufacturer.

The other point I'd make is, why does a picup have to be either true single coil or true humbucker in tone anyway? Kinman can clearly make hum cancelling single coils that retain a real single coil vibe so why can't someone else do that as well? Why can't stacked or parrallel poles be used to create a single coil sized humbucker? Does it really matter if it is different? Why can't one of these pickups be used to simply create a slightly thicker sounding single coil? Tim already does single coils that are described as P90-like and humbucker-like so by definition, they're hardly retaining true single coil tone. And what about these Fender Hot Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups that I see in Adrian Smith's Jackson? Are they yet another solution to the problem of hum?

OK, so a lot of what I'm saying may be dismissed as ill informed but the point I'm trying to make is that with demand so high for a solution to the problem of hum and so many possible solutions already found, surely it would be daft for Tim to simply say he'll never make one of these. There is a clear market out there for these and that must surely be an opportunity for someone like Tim, who is such a genius with pickups. If he chooses to simply ignore this market then that is a matter for him but I think that would be a shame.

[JacksonRR]

Kinman won't do a BKP camo finish.  :P
 I already have my heart set on BKPs with this project. I think I'm gonna go with a Piledriver in the neck, as Tim said it's a go for camo to match the bridge humbucker AND the sweeps Nolly did on the clips just sent me reeling with GAS, but the possible noise was in the back of my mind. Next project will probably have Motor City Pickups though, as that dude is supposed to be the U.S. version of BKP, putting forth the same efforts in both materials and construction as Tim. Longer wait time though. I had some e-mails back and forth with him and he seems to be on the same level with customer service as well. If you don't like the PU he wound for you, send it back and he'll either rewind it, replace magnets or just wind you a whole different model. Wow. So many PUs to choose from. There's a guy named Stan Hinesley who makes PUs in the same fashion and I'm also interested in his Rogue model which uses Alnico8 magnets. The harmonics in the clips are insanely awesome. Never heard such smoothness from a bridge.

No boutique winder makes stacked singles though. Not freakin one. :shock:

Doadman, that's about the most direct point of view I think you could make on the subject. I agree, but I think I'm a tad bit more light hearted about the matter. :lol: To tell you the truth, on first glance I thought the Trilogy Suites were hum-cancelling as Yngwie has used that style for almost 30 years. Was Tim aiming at making his single coils sound like stacked humbuckers then? That would be an odd turn around on theory.

[Doadman]

LOL, I didn't mean to come across as quite so serious so I'm sorry if I did. I love Bare Knuckle pickups and I won't use anything else but I'd equally love to have a BKP single coil that is hum cancelling. I'm just convinced Tim could do it better than anyone else. I'm constantly tempted by hum cancelling singles from other brands but I'm always left thinking I'd end up kicking myself that I didn't go with the superior BKP tone instead.